underground lair, I hastily launched into my introduction. I said something like – ‘Hello, my name is Tilde, it’s wonderful to meet you, I’ve moved into the farm down the road’ – and yes, I was nervous. I spoke too much, and too quickly. In the middle of my good-natured babble I remembered the flag tied in my hair. I thought: how ridiculous! I blushed like a schoolgirl and tripped over my words. And do you know what he did? Think of the cruellest response.
• • •
M Y MUM HAD SO FAR ASKED several rhetorical questions. On this occasion she was waiting for a reply. It was another test. Could I imagine cruelty? Several possibilities occurred to me, but they were so random and groundless that I decided to say:
‘I don’t know.’
Håkan answered in English. I was humiliated. Per haps my Swedish was a little old-fashioned. But we were both Swedes. Why were we talking to each other in a foreign tongue? I attempted to continue the conversation in Swedish but he refused to switch. I was confused, not wishing to seem rude. Remember, at this stage I wanted to be this man’s friend. In the end, I replied in English. As soon as I did he smiled as if he’d won a victory. He started speaking in Swedish and never spoke to me in English again in all the time that I was in Sweden.
As though this insult hadn’t taken place, he showed me inside the shelter. It was a workshop. There were wood shavings on the floor, sharp tools on the walls. On almost every surface there were trolls carved out of wood, hundreds of them. Some were painted. Others were half-finished – a long nose poking out of a log, waiting for a face to be carved. Håkan claimed that he didn’t sell any of them. They were given away as presents. He bragged that every house within twenty miles had at least one of his trolls, with some of his closest friends owning an entire troll family. You can see what he’s doing? He uses those wooden trolls as medals, awarding them to his trusted allies. When you cycle past anyone’s farm, there are trolls in the window, lined up, one, two, three, four – father, mother, daughter, son, a complete set, a complete troll family, the highest honour Håkan could bestow, displayed as a statement of allegiance.
I wasn’t given a troll. Instead, he handed me the knife and welcomed me to Sweden. I didn’t pay much attention to the gift because I thought it inappropriate that I was being welcomed to my own country. I wasn’t a guest. Irritated by his tone, I didn’t notice the engravings on the handle, nor did I consider why he’d given me a knife rather than a troll figure. Now it’s obvious – he didn’t want me to have a troll displayed in our window in case people mistook it for a sign that we were friends.
As he showed me out, I caught sight of a second door, at the back of the shelter. A heavy-duty padlock hung from the lock. It might seem an irrelevant observation, but that second room will become important later. Hold it in your mind and ask yourself why it needed a second lock when there was already a lock on the front door.
Håkan proceeded to walk me back to the drive. He didn’t invite me inside his house. He didn’t offer coffee. He was escorting me off the premises. I was forced to raise the issue of renting our fields while we were walking, mentioning my idea about how we’d accept meat in exchange for the land. He had a different idea.
‘How about I buy your whole farm, Tilde?’
I didn’t laugh because he didn’t seem to be making a joke. He was serious. Except it didn’t make any sense. Why hadn’t he simply bought the farm from Cecilia? I put this to him directly. He explained that he’d tried, claiming he’d offered twice as much as we’d paid and he would’ve offered three times as much, but Cecilia flatly turned him down. I asked why. He said none of their disagreements would interest me. However, he was happy to make me the same offer, the entire farm for
• • •
M Y MUM HAD SO FAR ASKED several rhetorical questions. On this occasion she was waiting for a reply. It was another test. Could I imagine cruelty? Several possibilities occurred to me, but they were so random and groundless that I decided to say:
‘I don’t know.’
Håkan answered in English. I was humiliated. Per haps my Swedish was a little old-fashioned. But we were both Swedes. Why were we talking to each other in a foreign tongue? I attempted to continue the conversation in Swedish but he refused to switch. I was confused, not wishing to seem rude. Remember, at this stage I wanted to be this man’s friend. In the end, I replied in English. As soon as I did he smiled as if he’d won a victory. He started speaking in Swedish and never spoke to me in English again in all the time that I was in Sweden.
As though this insult hadn’t taken place, he showed me inside the shelter. It was a workshop. There were wood shavings on the floor, sharp tools on the walls. On almost every surface there were trolls carved out of wood, hundreds of them. Some were painted. Others were half-finished – a long nose poking out of a log, waiting for a face to be carved. Håkan claimed that he didn’t sell any of them. They were given away as presents. He bragged that every house within twenty miles had at least one of his trolls, with some of his closest friends owning an entire troll family. You can see what he’s doing? He uses those wooden trolls as medals, awarding them to his trusted allies. When you cycle past anyone’s farm, there are trolls in the window, lined up, one, two, three, four – father, mother, daughter, son, a complete set, a complete troll family, the highest honour Håkan could bestow, displayed as a statement of allegiance.
I wasn’t given a troll. Instead, he handed me the knife and welcomed me to Sweden. I didn’t pay much attention to the gift because I thought it inappropriate that I was being welcomed to my own country. I wasn’t a guest. Irritated by his tone, I didn’t notice the engravings on the handle, nor did I consider why he’d given me a knife rather than a troll figure. Now it’s obvious – he didn’t want me to have a troll displayed in our window in case people mistook it for a sign that we were friends.
As he showed me out, I caught sight of a second door, at the back of the shelter. A heavy-duty padlock hung from the lock. It might seem an irrelevant observation, but that second room will become important later. Hold it in your mind and ask yourself why it needed a second lock when there was already a lock on the front door.
Håkan proceeded to walk me back to the drive. He didn’t invite me inside his house. He didn’t offer coffee. He was escorting me off the premises. I was forced to raise the issue of renting our fields while we were walking, mentioning my idea about how we’d accept meat in exchange for the land. He had a different idea.
‘How about I buy your whole farm, Tilde?’
I didn’t laugh because he didn’t seem to be making a joke. He was serious. Except it didn’t make any sense. Why hadn’t he simply bought the farm from Cecilia? I put this to him directly. He explained that he’d tried, claiming he’d offered twice as much as we’d paid and he would’ve offered three times as much, but Cecilia flatly turned him down. I asked why. He said none of their disagreements would interest me. However, he was happy to make me the same offer, the entire farm for
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